Samsung 9100 PRO 8TB NVMe SSD Review

This is the fastest 8TB SSD in the world

When Samsung announced their new 9100 PRO lineup back in February we were eager to get our hands on the company’s first PCIe 5.0 SSD, and we were not disappointed. The 2TB model achieved our highest ever scores in many categories, eclipsing Crucial as the fastest overall Gen 5 drive on the market. But there was one more thing coming from Samsung, and that is today’s 8TB offering.

With a potent in-house controller design and a massive 8GB of LPDDR4X to go along with the 8TB of Samsung’s 8th-generation TLC V NAND, the latest 9100 PRO SSD should be a very impressive product. And, really, it stands alone as Crucial’s T710 (a close runner-up in overall performance) is not available in an 8TB model. 

Here’s a look back at the spec sheet from the original 9100 PRO series announcement:

Cost is, naturally, one important consideration, and while Samsung has been very aggressive with their promotional pricing with the lower-capacity drives in the series (with discounts of up to $150), this new 8TB model hits shelves with a whopping $999.99 USD price tag. 

Benchmark Results

We placed the 9100 PRO 8TB back on the X870E test platform, installed in the primary M.2 slot using the motherboard’s heatsink. Full particulars of the test configuration below.

We begin with our customary screenshot of peak synthetic performance using CrystalDiskMark, with the empty Samsung 9100 PRO 8TB SSD producing some impressive numbers:

Compared to the 2TB version both sequential and random 4K numbers are higher here, and while we expected sequential read speeds to be higher (the 4TB and 8TB models offer 100MB/s faster sequential reads) the higher random performance bodes well for this drive.

Next we will look at testing performed under controlled circumstances to compare recently tested SSDs. All drives were filled the the 50% mark with a combination of game installs and misc smaller files, with results broken down by queue depth (QD1 through QD8).

Regardless of how you sort these results (all of these were sorted by QD8) the Samsung 9100 PRO 8TB is now in the lead. In fact, Samsung’s latest drive leads at every queue depth in the sequential read test.

Moving from sequential reads to sequential writes, we will see how the larger capacity of the 8TB model might affect write speeds:

Samsung moves up to the first place at the higher queue depths with the 8TB 9100 PRO, but Crucial still has an edge with QD1 sequential writes with that strong showing from the T710.

We move on to random 4K reads and writes:

Samsung is owning the higher queue depths, though Crucial does very well at QD4 and below in 4K random read – and is downright dominant in 4K random writes at QD1 and QD2.

Finally, we look at our “real-world’ result via PCMark 10 and the full system SSD benchmark:

While average bandwidth was slightly lower than the 9100 PRO 2TB model, the 9100 PRO 8TB still managed to score high enough to dethrone that smaller capacity SKU. Speeds like this at 8TB are just silly. I guess you really can have it all.

Final Thoughts

The biggest aspect of this release is of course the 8TB capacity, but after testing the Samsung 9100 PRO 8TB we can say that – regardless of size – this is the fastest SSD we have ever tested. Building on the already outstanding performance of the 2TB variant, Samsung has a unique offering right now. A quick search on Newegg reveals zero 8TB Gen 5 competitors. And while the merits of Gen 5 over Gen 4 in practical usage is a valid discussion, it’s still impressive to see Samsung boldly going where no SSD has gone before.

If you can afford the $999.99 USD price (before any potential promotions down the road), Samsung is offering that rare combination of fastest overall speed and largest available capacity in one product. I would say that Samsung’s entrance into the PCIe 5.0 storage space has been a success so far.